The Secret
by MaximumRideFangLover97
Summary: Magnus Bane has a secret, one he's been able to keep the 800 years he's been alive. But now, one slipup as small as someone seeing something they should't have, shatters the life he has created for himself into a thousand pieces.
1. Chapter 1

Magnus Bane rose out of his chair and walked to the window, looking out at Brooklyn. There was a knock on his door, but he made no move to answer it.  
>"Magnus, I know you're in there!" a voice called over the intercom a few seconds later.<br>He sighed. He knew that voice, and he also knew that it's owner would not go away until he answered it.  
>Magnus went to the door. He opened to find that he was right; Alec Lightwood was standing in the doorway.<br>"Magnus, we need your help," he said.  
>Magnus looked at Alec. The younger boy looked very worried. "What happened?"<br>"It's Jace. We don't know what happened. But he was found outside the Institute, unconscious, barely breathing."


	2. Chapter 2

Magnus's POV  
>Magnus hurried along behind Alec, following him into the Institute.<br>"In here," Alec called, leading Magnus into the Institute's infirmary.  
>Jace was lying on a bed, eyes closed. His breathing was shallow.<br>Alec's POV  
>Magnus looked at Jace and turned back to Alec. "You need to leave. I don't like people watching me work my magic." He raised one hand, blue sparks jumping between his fingers, to emphasis his point.<br>Alec nodded. He turned around and left the room, closing the door behind him. Before he was completely out of the room, though, he thought he saw Magnus draw a thin, silver cylinder out of his pocket, like a stele.


	3. Chapter 3

Alec's POV  
>"I'm telling you! He pulled a stele out of his pocket. He's a Shadowhunter in disguise," Alec told Jace, Clary, and Isabelle a few days later.<br>"Alec, even I know that can't happen. A Shadowhunter can become a vampire or lycanthrope, but never a warlock or faery," Clary answered.  
>"She's right," Jace agreed.<br>"What if he's not really a warlock? Have you ever seen him do magic?" Alec said triumphantly.  
>"Several times. You have, too."<br>Alec groaned and stalked off too his room, not noticing Magnus standing next to the door.  
>Magnus's POV<br>Magnus walked out of his hiding place in the hall, entering the kitchen, where the others had been talking.  
>"Magnus, did you hear any of that conversation?" Clary asked as he walked in.<br>He nodded. "I have to tell you some thing, though. Clary's ability to create new runes? Yeah, she's not the first one with that ability. I knew the first."  
>Jace fell out of his chair. Clary stopped mid-yawn. Isabelle spun around do fast that she banged her knee on the leg of the table. And Alec, who had been walking by the kitchen, backed up and walked in the room. "Who was it?"<br>Magnus looked around shyly. "Me."


	4. Chapter 4

Magnus's POV  
>The room was silent for a moment. Then Alec turned on the others. "I told you! I saw him pull out a stele!"<br>"After you saw me, I decided to let my little secret out. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep it much longer, anyway," Magnus replied.  
>"So you're not eight hundred years old?" Jace asked.<br>Magnus shook his head. "I am. When I was nineteen, I created an immortality rune - which I am not teaching any of you - and used it on myself. The only problem is, it's permanent. I can't get it off. But that's beside the point. I also discovered a way to make a very strong glamour, so strong that even fellow Shadowhunters couldn't see past it if they tried. I did the glamour after I had Marked myself with the immortality rune, in hiding. I let everyone believe that Matthew Banemark was dead, then emerged several years later as Magnus Bane." Magnus paused for breath.  
>"But weren't you afraid someone might recognize you?" Clary asked.<br>"That's what the glamour was for. It hid everything: the scars from my old Marks, the two Marks I kept - immortality and the one on the back of my right hand - which were permanent, even covered up the way I looked. Then I had to cast another glamour on my eyes, to give me the cat's eyes, and yet another whenever I 'cast a spell.' Oh, sure, I have runes that help me perform simple warlock spells, but, while fighting, I'm more comfortable casting glamours, then rushing up with a seraph blade. I almost lost the one on my eyes recently, which was what made my mind up about giving it up."  
>"So this is all a disguise? You don't really look like this?" Alec asked.<br>Magnus shook his head.  
>"Then what do you really look like?" Alec asked.<br>Magnus grinned shyly. "I, ah, forget. It's been so long. I could take the glamours off, if you like."  
>Clary, Jace, Alec, and Isabelle nodded.<br>Magnus disappeared into an empty room. He stood in front of the mirror, removing glamours one by one. First the one on his Marks, revealing one black design on the back of his right hand and another on his left shoulder. He then removed the glamour on his eyes, and all of the others.  
>Alec's POV<br>"It's taking him a long time," Alec said to no one in particular.  
>"He said he had a ton of glamours, though. Aren't those hard to remove?" Clary asked.<br>"She's right," Jace answered.  
>A door opened down the hall. "Done!" Magnus called, entering the kitchen. Everyone gasped.<br>The first thing Alec noticed was the Mark on the back of Magnus's right hand, shaped like an open eye. It was the same Mark every Shadowhunter child got when they turned twelve. But that wasn't all. While his features had stayed mostly the same, the hazel cat's eyes had become blue-green, and had lost the slit pupil. His black hair had become dark brown. Silvery-white scars stood out on his tanned skin - a memory of old Marks.  
>No one said anything. They just stood there, dumbstruck.<br>"Wow," Alec said finally, just to break the silence.  
>"I know, right?" Magnus agreed, pushing a piece of his long brown hair, which now skimmed the tops of his shoulders, out of his face. He grinned, his blue-green eyes twinkling.<br>The Institute's doorbell rang, causing everyone to jump. Clary shook her head, as if waking from a dream. "I've got it," Jace said, already halfway to the door.  
>Alec followed slowly. Simon was standing in the doorway, saying something to Jace. He broke off, looking at something behind Alec. "Who's that?" he asked.<br>Alec turned around. Magnus was standing behind him. "Hello, rat."  
>Simon looked confused for a moment. "<em>Magnus<em>? But I thought…" Simon stopped, staring at the black Mark on the back of Magnus's hand. "You're not a warlock. You're a Shadowhunter."


End file.
